March 10, 2010

Brizzly Acquires Birdfeed, WikiRank, Adds iPhone App

Thing Labs, the parent company of Brizzly, one of the more innovative Twitter Web clients out there, unveiled a slew of announcements this morning, with the acquisition of popular iPhone application Birdfeed and WikiRank, a visualization Web app based on Wikipedia data. The acquisitions will help fuel the launch of Brizzly's first branded iPhone application, and a new Brizzly Guide, which extends the trend explanations core to Brizzly since the product debuted with permanent definitions, accessible even after a topic stops trending.

The Brizzly Guide, as you can assume, looks much like Wikipedia, integrating a trending topics definition with related links, and a Twitter search. For example, Chuck Norris is trending because he turns 70 years old today, and SXSW is trending because of its debut on March 12th. This furthers the company's focus on the Let's Be Trends API launched last fall.

Why Is Chuck Norris Trending? Because Chuck Norris Trends When He Wants.

"I would love to see the Guide fill the gap in 'why are people talking about this' and 'what is it' that I don't see on Wikipedia or other search/news sources. Wikipedia is definitely of great value and we use it for context on some Guide pages," said Thing Labs CEO Jason Shellen. "We are turning on new ways to contribute and can't wait to see how our users continue to help explain the world around them."

Brizzly's new iPhone application, released today, has been much awaited, and a clear hole in their lineup. But the company took a different approach. Rather than building their own app from scratch, they acquired Birdfeed, and worked with the developer, Buzz Andersen (@buzz), who recently joined Jack Dorsey's Square, to add new features and release it as a branded app.

Brizzly's New iPhone App With Custom Tabs and Photos

The new iPhone app features many Brizzly-only features, including Brizzly Guide support, uploading of photos to Brizzly Pics, and muting from Brizzly.com. It also features multiple account support, lists, saved searches, classic retweets, custom tabs and infinite scrolling, according to a microsite on the new product, found at http://brizzly.com/iphone/.